Quote Originally Posted by MeinPanzer View Post
I don't think I've ever seen a "very small" Celtic thureos. In most cases, though, we simply can't tell how big Celtic thureoi were based on representational evidence.
I never pecifically said thureos, becasue the thureos would need to be defined first. Do we only go by the "door size" connotation that the Greeks gave to the large shield? Do we go only by size alone? Shape? Presence of a central spine (round shields have central spines too). In some ways, calling the Celtic shield a thureos is/can be, misleading.

However, a perfect example is the Clonoura shield from Ireland. Made of wood but completely covered in leather, it only measures 57 x 37 cm, obviously making this a tiny shield compared to they average shield. For continental examples the best (and only, I think) example are from the Civitia Alba terracottas. All of those shields, when compared to ones on the Vacheres and Mondragon statues, and late Boian coin shields, all have a huge differential in size as well as shape.

Do you have a source for any of this?
None that I have read myself (doesn't mean its not true), but I've not read anything refuting this tactic either.

As I've read, high casualties would result initially from blindly charging straight into a Macedonian phalanx...a great way to kill off all of your nobility if they lead that charge, so, either they would have to try and go under, or, send in the 'lesser infantry', who'd have smaller, shorter swords, to disrupt the formation first. Too bad theres no details from classical sources to tell exactly what happened the moment before impact.

Plenty of burials have been found of both infantrymen and cavalrymen with long swords. There's no need to speculate.
No speculation needed, but for the record certain books on Celts do favor or specifically mention those swords of that size being a cavalry weapon as they would be too unwieldy to use in hand to hand combat.